Subject: FEER: Ghosts Of The Past Still
Haunt East Timor [+Pipe Dreams]

Far Eastern Economic Review Issue cover-dated August 31, 2000

EAST TIMOR

Ghosts in Paradise

One year after a vote for independence and its bloody aftermath, a
budding nation hopes to bury its conflicts and build on its natural
resources

By John McBeth/DILI, EAST TIMOR

IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND one thing about the patient called East
Timor. Sure it's in intensive care, still gasping for life and hooked up
to an intravenous drip of United Nations assistance and transfusions of
foreign aid. But for all the destruction, the political uncertainties, the
woeful shortage of trained people and the sheer magnitude of its many
ailments, it doesn't have to be another Third World invalid.

Boasting oil and gas and world-famous arabica coffee, potentially
self-sufficient in rice and maize, a beckoning playground for eco-tourists
and scuba divers, East Timor has plenty going for it, even its
name-recognition. "It could be a paradise," muses Joao
Carrascalao, cabinet member in charge of infrastructure for the United
Nations-administered transitional government. "It's a small country,
with a small population and a lot of good friends around the world."

If that promise is to be fulfilled, East Timorese leaders will have to
exorcize the ghosts that allowed it to go from downtrodden Portuguese
colony to brutalized Indonesian vassal. Some of those ghosts lurk across
the border in West Timor in the form of the Jakarta-backed militiamen who
laid waste to East Timor last September and could remain a serious
security threat for years to come. Guerrilla activity has heated up in
recent weeks with the deaths of two peacekeepers in separate clashes with
well-armed militiamen. The United Nations Transitional Authority for East
Timor, or Untaet, is convinced the Indonesian military can stop
cross-border raids if it wants to. The authority is growing tired of
unfulfilled government promises to close the West Timor refugee camps that
are home to about 120,000 East Timorese and are a breeding ground for the
militias.

Other ghosts mingle among the East Timorese themselves. Political
adversaries must settle decades-old differences before East Timor can be
nursed to full nationhood, as the UN hopes to achieve by the end of next
year.

The National Council of Timorese Resistance, or CNRT, an umbrella group
including two long-time adversaries--Fretilin and the Timorese Democratic
Union--has created at least the impression of unity in this half-island
nation. But tribalism and the absence of democratic tradition make the
task ahead that much more difficult. It was fighting between the two
groups after the Portuguese abruptly abandoned the colony in 1975 that
left the door open for Indonesian invasion and annexation a year later.

Both parties are keenly aware it could happen all over again unless
charismatic former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, East Timor's apparent
president-in-waiting, and Nobel peace laureate Bishop Carlos Ximines Belo
can keep tensions in check. "The CNRT is a fiction of an organization
held together by the thinnest of threads and Xanana's personality,"
says a former UN official who has spent years watching East Timor.
"The Dili leadership is at each other's throats."

Gusmao relinquished command of Fretilin's armed resistance force,
Falintil, on August 20. Wisely discarding his fatigues for sandals and
jeans, Gusmao, 53, is clearly trying to model himself on Nelson Mandela: a
saintly, statesman-like leader who put his bitterness aside. "If you
really want peace, if you really want stability, you have to put
everything behind you," Gusmao told the REVIEW. "If not you will
live under a trauma, the ghosts of the past. You can't see the
future."

Gusmao is determined to ensure that if East Timor's internal
differences are revisited, they will be dealt with peacefully, through
politics. While both groups call themselves social democrats, Fretilin's
dominance is obvious. Falintil remains largely intact--the apparent core
of a planned 3,000 to 5,000-man East Timor defence force. That makes some
Timorese Democratic Union supporters nervous, but in stepping down as
Falintil chief Gusmao is making his political neutrality clear.
"Security is secondary to the resolution of East Timor's political
problems," says one senior Western military officer. "Solving
that means the militia problem will go away."

Although few people question Gusmao's legitimacy, there are those who
question just how democratic he really is, saying they have seen nothing
yet to indicate a willingness on the part of the CNRT to encourage
genuinely free and open debate. But it's only in the past month that the
UN authority has brought the East Timorese fully into the political
process in the governing structure of the transitional government.

The first CNRT congress, which opened on August 21, is likely to
provide some signposts to East Timor's political future. But critical
decisions about a new constitution, the country's political structure and
even its official name will not be decided until after elections next
August for a 50 or 60-strong constituent assembly. CNRT Vice-President
Jose Ramos Horta says the president should hold executive power. Gusmao
himself appears to favour a system in which the president would share
executive powers with other elected officials.

If there's a gulf at the leadership level, a debate over whether to
adopt Portuguese or English as an official second language reveals
generational differences as well--an important issue when political and
economic power rests with only 20 to 30 elite Timorese families. After
Tetum, the native tongue, CNRT leaders favour Portuguese, which they say
is "part of their culture," though only 8% of the 800,000
Timorese understand it. Younger Timorese, almost all of whom speak
Indonesian but not Portuguese, suspect the CNRT is trying to prevent them
from participating in the new government.

AID REMAINS CRUCIAL

In any case, there is general agreement that for the first five years
after it is formed, East Timor's new government will have to depend
heavily on expert UN or Western bilateral assistance, particularly at
senior levels. The sheer lack of qualified people is particularly evident
in health and education. East Timor has only 15 qualified doctors. There
are plenty of primary school teachers, but few secondary teachers. None of
the 18 district court judges recruited so far has a full law degree.

It's not all bad news, however. Australian finance expert Michael
Carnahan, an UN authority consultant, says he has been impressed with the
quality of candidates who have applied for positions in the treasury,
taxation and budget departments, all of whom hold Indonesian degrees.

UN officials say the biggest challenge in building a new bureaucracy is
ensuring that corrupt practices from the old Indonesian regime aren't
carried on. "We have warned them that cases of corruption will be
dealt with harshly," says Mozambican judge Gita Honwana-Welch, head
of judicial affairs for the transitional administration. "If we fail
there, then we would have failed in other areas as well."

Restoring East Timor's infrastructure is also key to getting the
country back on its feet. The highways running east and west out of Dili
are still in relatively good condition. But those across the central
mountain chain have deteriorated badly. The World Bank, the trustee for
the overall aid effort, is concentrating on improving the highway between
Baucau and the rice-growing Viqueque district to ensure at least one
serviceable north-south route.

It is also shoring up the winding road to the main coffee-growing area
of Ermera, in the forested hills southwest of Dili. Mari Alkatiri, who has
returned from exile to handle economic affairs, believes East Timor can
double arabica production in three years. He is also confident that with
better farming of fertile valleys the Indonesians kept fallow for security
reasons, East Timor will have little trouble achieving self-sufficiency in
rice.

The best chance for prosperity lies under the Timor Sea: Oil and gas
reserves there could provide revenue and the collateral to underwrite
international loans (See article on page 18). But for now, Timorese
leaders feel, it is important to keep expectations realistic. After what
East Timor has gone through, that may be the wisest course yet.

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